


The Bellcurve of Passion

by Infiniteskye



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-30
Updated: 2014-05-30
Packaged: 2018-01-27 14:16:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1713611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Infiniteskye/pseuds/Infiniteskye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Akashi’s mother brings him a blue-haired pianist, the only blessing he has ever received from the mother that left him.<br/>Gift Fic for Chii</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Bellcurve of Passion

**Author's Note:**

> Gift Fic for redpoem!  
> Cross-posted from Tumblr

 

On the first floor of Akashi Seijuro’s mansion, stood an intricate million-dollar piano.

His father had purchased it from overseas, initially intending for it to be a simple decoration in the saloon before his mother had decided it was time for her son to learn an instrument. It was one of the rare times his father had complied to her decisions, making her absolutely elated.

At this time, Akashi could not discern the specifics of their otherwise dysfunctional marriage.

Nevertheless, from then on, on Sunday afternoons at four, a soft-spoken man with powder blue hair would enter the saloon, filling it with the seamless sounds of a gentle and heart-felt melody that danced on his thin fingertips.

His pieces were mostly romantic, enough that his mother would sometimes cry from its beauty, a concept Akashi perhaps understood once upon a time before the man would finish his demonstration and take Akashi’s still small and delicate hands, placing the fibres to key, allowing Akashi to spin a melody.

Akashi did not recall whether he showed prowess in the romantic. By nature, he preferred technical bumblebees that buzzed in alacrity at every note over canons of whispering romance. Nevertheless, his teacher taught him whatever he liked, because it was whatever he liked.

“I love the piano, that’s why I’m teaching it to you, in hopes that you’ll love it too.” His teacher would say. “Do you like to play piano?”

Yet not once, did Akashi Seijuro find the chance to reply to that statement. It was not a matter of like or not; it was one of performing, perfecting, just as his father willed.

However, the more his father willed for perfection, the more Akashi’s mother, the only sentimental being in Akashi’s childhood, fell into hysterics, as though with each passing day did she have a rope wrung around her neck, squeezing tighter and tighter until she finally left the house.

“She was weak. Remember, in this world, winners are validated and losers are denied. The winners are the ones who are strong. She was not, that’s why she left, broken and incompetent. You…have the same blood of hers flowing through your veins. Are you going to lose as well?”

And everything fell to vertigo.

After his father took full charge of his upbringing, his father decided that the blue-haired man’s music reminded him of sentiments, of Akashi’s mother that on Sundays at four, the piano stopped singing.

Akashi merely took everything in stride.

However, one day, on a calculated whim, Akashi decided to put fibres to key, much like that pianist did in the past—and began devouring music as he scaled the technical bell curve with a new piano teacher, a methodical man like his father. It wasn’t long before his father’s cohorts applauded him for his riveting arpeggios, Liszt, and more that from then on, Akashi became certain, that only winners could ever be validated in this world.

[=]

It was pure coincidence that Akashi met the blue-haired man again.

“Sensei,” Akashi released for old time’s sake as the man turned out to be the new music teacher at his school.

“…Akashi Seijuro-kun? It’s been a long while,” Kuroko Tetsuya returned to the teen. It had been a few years since they had seen each other but regardless, Kuroko’s memory of that house was clear.

“It certainly has.” Akashi spoke, with the same reserve he had held as a child.

“Are you still playing the piano?” Kuroko asked.

Akashi nodded. “Yes, albeit much shortly compared to before.”

“Ah yes, you must be very busy. I heard you’re the captain of the basketball team right now.”

Akashi nodded as the room sank back into a distilled silence.

Kuroko did not mind. Neither of them were of many words. He merely observed the youth whose scarlet eyes slowly parted from him, scanning the classroom until they met the grand piano sitting silently on the side.

He paused for a moment, as if calculating his next move before he said, “Sensei, will you listen to me play?”

And Kuroko blinked, not because of the request, but because of the look in his eyes as he said those words, as if this was a matter of life and death, as if, he was about to prove something to himself.

All Kuroko Tetsuya knew of the boy was that even as a child, he was clearly different from the rest. He was sharp, monstrously so that unlike other children that he’d have to coax with courtesy, Akashi Seijuro took all his instructions in stride, without complaints, because that was what he assumed was expected of him.

Already, that spoke volumes of what kind of upbringing the boy had but nevertheless, Akashi did not seem to mind, therefore Kuroko said nothing.

All he wanted, was to give the child a passion, a reason, though temporary, for living—something he realized he failed to do.

What Akashi Seijuro played was perfection. Upon placing his hands on the keys, he constructed a gripping “Flight of the Bumblebees” with astounding dexterity, ending with a note of certain finality.

The poised figures returned from the keys and landed on his knees.

“…It’s very well-done Akashi-kun,” Kuroko said.

But there was no clap.

“Thank you.” Akashi returned.

The silence seeped in once again, morphing the room into a chasm of despair.

Kuroko stared at his former student. “… It seems you still enjoy technical pieces as usual.”

And Akashi slowly sucked in a breath. “No, I can play romantic pieces just as well. Will you listen? Kuroko-sensei?”

“…Akashi-ku—”

And music drowned out his voice. Akashi Seijuro played not one, but two, then three, hopelessly romantic pieces of Debussy and Mendelssohn, with insincere perfection. The music was touching, horrifyingly so but none of it reflected Akashi Seijuro’s heart or the blood of his sentimental mother—he was playing only for the sake of perfection.

The two sat in the silence of the room, the afternoon sunlight beaming down at the piano.

“…Do you like piano?” Kuroko asked Akashi afterwards.

Despite being unable to answer for all those years, Akashi replied with a curt, “that’s irrelevant.”

Passion was irrelevant, emotion was irrelevant, all that was required of him was to win, win, and win.

“…Is that so?” Kuroko returned, before he asked, “may I take a seat next to you, Akashi-kun.” and Akashi made room on the cramped piano bench.

The two had grown over the years. Akashi was no longer slightly above Kuroko’s shoulder and Kuroko was no longer that gaunt man with thin delicate fingers.

Yet, suddenly it felt as though time had been reversed, back to the days of his youth.

“Akashi-kun, that Debussy piece you played, it was your mother’s favorite wasn’t it?”

“…Perhaps. Are you requesting that I play it with you as a duet?” The incisive teen asked.

“Do you still remember?”

“Of course.”

And so they played, a literal cacophony of Debussy’s once beautiful piece as the two’s tempos, their tones clashed in an array like no other.

“Sensei, with all due respect the tempo on the original sheet should be much slower.”

“…No. This way sounds better.” Kuroko urged.

“Am I speaking to deaf ears?” Akashi questioned without haste.

Kuroko smiled. “This is my style of piano, and I’m teaching it to you because I hope you’ll love piano too”

“I am absolute. The way I have played and always will play has won, therefore it is correct.” Akashi returned without hesitation.

But neither would back down on their stance, until they played for what felt like an eternity, in that saloon from long ago, on the afternoon Sundays at four, where Akashi Seijuro felt the happiest.

It was the most perfect piece he had ever played.

[=]

It was only many years after that did Akashi meet his mother once more.

He met her in a dream, the realm of the delusional, but he still accepted it--all of it.

In said dream. His mother did not speak a word to him. He didn't either.

She only smiled, that soft half-smile he had not seen in years as she held out her finger, and slit it.

Blood pooled out, almost invitingly as Akashi took a step forward, gazed at it with unmoving eyes. He cupped that hand in his and drank from it, tasting iron with his tongue.

It was the first time, he had accepted the other blood in his veins. The blood that wasn't from his father, that never could be from him.

Suddenly, for the first time in an eternity, a single tear slid down his cheek.

He continued dreaming, resting, _sleeping,_ as it was wiped away, by the slender fingers of a pianist.


End file.
